Legislators hear hours of testimony on expanding Indiana's school voucher program

Lesley Weidenbener / TheStatehouseFile.com
Michelle Smith, who directs a refugee organization in Indianapolis, holds a sign she made to protest a bill that would expand a private school voucher program.

INDIANAPOLIS - The state Senate Education Committee heard hours of testimony Wednesday on a bill to expand Indiana's school voucher program.

Supporters of the bill said vouchers, which enable students to use tax money to attend private schools, are a blessing for low-income families, while critics warned they could destroy public schools.

House Bill 1003 — which already has passed the House — makes more students eligible for vouchers. That's something Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said might not be appropriate — especially because lawmakers have yet to study the impact of the 2-year-old program. It led to a long and sometimes testy exchange between Kenley and the bill's author, Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis.

"If we do testing and 80 percent of the students don't function at the level of the public schools, will this program be worth it?" Kenley asked.

To that and other questions, Behning said: "Parents should get to choose what is best for their children."

Current law providers vouchers to qualified students who have gone to public school for at least one year.

HB 1003 would eliminate that requirement for students who start attending a private school in kindergarten. It also raises income guidelines — making more families eligible — for students who are foster children, special needs students, children of people who are or were in the military, and siblings of students who already received vouchers.

Kenley — who chairs the Appropriations Committee, which likely will consider the bill after the education committee is done — said eliminating the one-year public school requirement would be a "cataclysmic change" in the original intent of the law. He said vouchers were meant to help students who were in a failing school or for whom the public school just wasn't working.

Parents and educators testified on both sides of the issue.

One parent said she could tell shortly after her son started in Indianapolis Public Schools he would not succeed in the public school system. She said her son has been using the voucher for two years and is now happy to go to school every day at his private school.